Where
biotechnology is ultimately headed includes not only redefining what it
means to be human, but redefining subsequent human rights as well. For
instance, Dr. James Hughes wants transgenic chimps and great apes uplifted
genetically so that they achieve “personhood.” The underlying
goal behind this theory would
be to establish that basic cognitive aptitude should equal “personhood”
and that this “cognitive standard” and not “human-ness”
should be the key to constitutional protections and privileges. Among
other things, this would lead to nonhuman “persons” and “nonperson”
humans, unhinging the existing argument behind intrinsic sanctity of human
life and paving the way for such things as harvesting organs from people
like Terry Schiavo whenever the loss of cognitive ability equals the dispossession
of “personhood.” These would be the first victims of transhumanism,
according to Prof. Francis Fukuyama, concerning who does or does not qualify
as fully human and is thus represented by the founding concept that “all
men are created equal.” Most would argue that any human fits this
bill, but women and blacks were not included in these rights in 1776 when
Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence.

So who
is to say what protections can be automatically assumed in an age when
human biology is altered and when personhood theory challenges what bioethicists
like Wesley J. Smith champion as “human exceptionalism”: the
idea that human beings carry special moral status in nature and special
rights, such as the right to life, plus unique responsibilities, such
as stewardship of the environment. Some, but not all, believers in human
exceptionalism arrive at this concept from a biblical worldview based
on Genesis 1:26, which says, “And God said, ‘Let us make man
in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the
fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and
over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the
earth.’”

NANOTECHNOLOGY
and CYBERNETICS

As discussed
in the previous entry, technology to merge human brains with machines
is progressing at a fantastic rate. Nanotechnology—the science of
engineering materials or devices on an atomic and molecular scale between
1 to 100 nanometers (a nanometer is one billionth of a meter) in size—is
poised to take the development between brain-machine interfaces and cybernetic
devices to a whole new adaptive level for human modification. This will
happen because, as Dr. C. Christopher Hook points out:

Engineering
or manipulating matter and life at nanometer scale [foresees] that the
structures of our bodies and our current tools could be significantly
altered. In recent years, many governments around the world, including
the United States with its National Nanotechnology Initiative, and scores
of academic centers and corporations have committed increasing support
for developing nanotechnology programs. The military, which has a significant
interest in nanotechnology, has created the Center for Soldier Nanotechnologies
(csn) [which is] interested in the use of such technology to help create
the seamless interface of electronic devices with the human nervous system,
engineering the cyborg soldier.[1]

TRANSHUMAN
EUGENICS

In the
early part of the twentieth century, the study and practice of selective
human breeding known as eugenics sought to counter dysgenic aspects within
the human gene pool and to improve overall human “genetic qualities.”
Researchers in the United States, Britain, Canada, and Germany (where,
under Adolf Hitler, eugenics operated under the banner of “racial
hygiene” and allowed Josef Mengele, Otmar von Verschuer, and others
to perform horrific experiments on live human beings in concentration
camps to test their genetic theories) were interested in weeding out “inferior”
human bloodlines and used studies to insinuate heritability between certain
families and illnesses such as schizophrenia, blindness, deafness, dwarfism,
bipolar disorder, and depression.

Their
published reports fueled the eugenics movement to develop state laws in
the 1800s and 1900s that forcefully sterilized persons considered unhealthy
or mentally ill in order to prevent them from “passing on”
their genetic inferiority to future generations. Such laws were not abolished
in the U.S. until the mid-twentieth century, leading to more than sixty
thousand sterilized Americans in the meantime. Between 1934 and 1937,
the Nazis likewise sterilized an estimated four hundred thousand people
they deemed of inferior genetic stock while also setting forth to selectively
exterminate the Jews as “genetic aberrations” under the same
program. Transhumanist goals of using biotechnology, nanotechnology, mind-interfacing,
and related sciences to create a superior man and thus classifications
of persons—the enhanced and the unenhanced—opens the door
for a new form of eugenics and social Darwinism.

GERM-LINE
GENETIC ENGINEERING

Germ-line
genetic engineering has the potential to actually achieve the goals of
the early eugenics movement (which sought to create superior humans via
improving genetics through selective breeding) through genetically modifying
human genes in very early embryos, sperm, and eggs. As a result, germ-line
engineering is considered by some conservative bioethicists to be the
most dangerous of human-enhancement technology, as it has the power to
truly reassemble the very nature of humanity into posthuman, altering
an embryo’s every cell and leading to inheritable modifications
extending to all succeeding generations. Debate over germ-line engineering
is therefore most critical, because as changes to “downline”
genetic offspring are set in motion, the nature and physical makeup of
mankind will be altered with no hope of reversal, thereby permanently
reshaping humanity’s future. A respected proponent of germ-line
technology is Dr. Gregory Stock, who, like cyborgist Kevin Warwick, departs
from Kurzweil’s version of Humans 2.0 first arriving as a result
of computer Singularity.

Stock
believes man can choose to transcend existing biological limitations in
the nearer future (at or before computers reach strong artificial intelligence)
through germ-line engineering. If we can make better humans by adding
new genes to their dna, he asks, why shouldn’t we? “We have
spent billions to unravel our biology, not out of idle curiosity, but
in the hope of bettering our lives. We are not about to turn away from
this,” he says, before admitting elsewhere that this could lead
to “clusters of genetically enhanced superhumans who will dominate
if not enslave us.”[2]
The titles to Stock’s books speak for themselves concerning what
germ-line engineering would do to the human race. The name of one is Redesigning
Humans: Our Inevitable Genetic Future and another is Metaman: The Merging
of Humans and Machines into a Global Superorganism.

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Besides
the short list above, additional areas of concern where readers may wish
to become well advised on the pros and cons of enhancement technology
include immortalism, postgenderism, augmented reality, cryonics, designer
babies, neurohacking, mind uploading, neural implants, xenotransplantation,
reprogenetics, rejuvenation, radical life extension, and more.

HEAVEN
AND HELL SCENARIOS

While
positive advances either already have been or will come from some of the
science and technology fields we have discussed, learned men like Prof.
Francis Fukuyama, in his book, Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the
Biotechnology Revolution, warn that unintended consequences resulting
from what mankind has now set in motion represents the most dangerous
time in earth’s history, a period when exotic technology in the
hands of transhumanist ambitions could forever alter what it means to
be human. To those who would engineer a transhuman future, Fukuyama warns
of a dehumanized “hell scenario” in which we “no longer
struggle, aspire, love, feel pain, make difficult moral choices, have
families, or do any of the things that we traditionally associate with
being human.” In this ultimate identity crisis, we would “no
longer have the characteristics that give us human dignity” because,
for one thing, “people dehumanized à la Brave New World...don’t
know that they are dehumanized, and, what is worse, would not care if
they knew. They are, indeed, happy slaves with a slavish happiness.”[3]
The “hell scenario” envisioned by Fukuyama is but a beginning
to what other intelligent thinkers believe could go wrong.

On the
other end of the spectrum and diametrically opposed to Fukuyama’s
conclusions is an equally energetic crowd that subscribes to a form of
technological utopianism called the “heaven scenario.” Among
this group, a “who’s who” of transhumansist evangelists
such as Ray Kurzweil, James Hughes, Nick Bostrom, and Gregory Stock see
the dawn of a new Age of Enlightenment arriving as a result of the accelerating
pace of Grin technologies. As with the eighteenth-century Enlightenment
in which intellectual and scientific reason elevated the authority of
scientists over priests, techno-utopians believe they will triumph over
prophets of doom by “stealing fire from the gods, breathing life
into inert matter, and gaining immortality. Our efforts to become something
more than human have a long and distinguished genealogy.

Tracing
the history of those efforts illuminates human nature. In every civilization,
in every era, we have given the gods no peace.”[4]
Such men are joined in their quest for godlike constitutions by a growing
list of official U.S. departments that dole out hundreds of millions of
dollars each year for science and technology research. The National Science
Foundation and the United States Department of Commerce anticipated this
development over a decade ago, publishing the government report Converging
Technologies for Improving Human Performance—complete with diagrams
and bullet points—to lay out the blueprint for the radical evolution
of man and machine. Their vision imagined that, starting around the year
2012, the “heaven scenario” would begin to be manifested and
quickly result in (among other things):

The
transhuman body being “more durable, healthy, energetic, easier
to repair, and resistant to many kinds of stress, biological threats,
and aging processes.”

Brain-machine
interfacing that will “transform work in factories, control automobiles,
ensure military superiority, and enable new sports, art forms and modes
of interaction between people.

“Engineers,
artists, architects, and designers will experience tremendously expanded
creative abilities,” in part through “improved understanding
of the wellspring of human creativity.”

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“Average
persons, as well as policymakers, will have a vastly improved awareness
of the cognitive, social, and biological forces operating their lives,
enabling far better adjustment, creativity, and daily decision making....

“Factories
of tomorrow will be organized” around “increased human-machine
capabilities.”[5]

I'll
resume in the next entry beyond how human augmentation and biological
reinvention would spread into the wider culture following 2012.

[Editor's
note: This series is based on research contained in Tom
and Nita Horn's upcoming new book: Forbidden Gates: How Genetics,
Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Synthetic Biology, Nanotechnology,
& Human Enhancement Herald the Dawn of Techno-Dimensional Spiritual
Warfare.]

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Over the last decade, he has authored three books,
wrote dozens of published editorials, and had several feature magazine
articles. In addition to past articles
at NewsWithViews.com , his works have been referred to by writers of the
LA Times Syndicate, MSNBC, Christianity Today, Coast to Coast, World Net
Daily, White House Correspondents and dozens of newsmagazines and press
agencies around the globe. Tom's latest book is "The Ahriman Gate," which
fictionalizes the use of biotechnology to resurrect Biblical Nephilim.

Thomas is also a well known radio personality
who has guest-hosted and appeared on dozens of radio and television shows
over the last 30 years, including "The 700 Club" and "Coast to Coast AM."
When looking for a spokesperson to promote their film "Deceived" staring
Louis Gossett Jr. and Judd Nelson, "Cloud 10 Pictures" selected Thomas
as their spokesperson to explain the Christian viewpoint on UFO-related
demonology.